


For Aragorn, After the War

by UnnamedElement (Unnamed_Element)



Series: Stories About the Sea-Longing (Collection) [3]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Did not write this as slash but it can be read that way, Gen, Poetry, Sea-longing (Tolkien), Teitho Fanfiction Contest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:14:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27733618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unnamed_Element/pseuds/UnnamedElement
Summary: After Legolas follows Aragorn to Pelargir despite Galadriel's warning, the wood-elf's Sea-longing is stirred, and, at first, it devastates him. In this poem, Legolas asks Aragorn for help and so, inadvertently, asks too for a new home—Ithilien. /November Teitho - Sacrifice/
Relationships: Aragorn | Estel & Legolas Greenleaf, Aragorn | Estel/Legolas Greenleaf
Series: Stories About the Sea-Longing (Collection) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2028685
Kudos: 13





	For Aragorn, After the War

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted elsewhere in December 2016.

**For Aragorn, After the War**

I want to slip into the hollow base  
of an old tree and melt into its heartwood,

for my own heart has fled me,

caught in the mouth of a gull  
like the silver needles I have seen

ripped from those waters.

I wonder if that is how I looked  
when I first lost myself?

Flimsy as bait and wriggling?  
Gasping for breath and then gone?

I have smelt nothing since but salt.

It kisses tart and burns my skin  
when I sweat, or cry—

I am blending into light.

I am a cacophonous song to undo the world,  
so loud I cannot hear, the way I imagine drowning.

Aragorn, make me breathe so deeply  
that the only thing left of me is Wood:

the hum of cicada,

moths stilled in dew at dawn,

the first fawn spotted among Spring's first ferns…

Can you give me back that home?  
Or make for me a new one?

For this old heart is too tired

to keep my head above water,  
and, here, the sun is a thousand mithril scales

that cut more with each wave.

I am soft and I am beached, Aragorn,  
raw from my love of this place:

it is for all of that, and you,

that I have given  
my heart.


End file.
